Mirrors
by wujy
Summary: Losing someone is never easy, especially when you're as close as Fred and George were.


Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I associated in any with with Harry Potter or Warner Brothers

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The small room contained very little in the way of furniture. There was a small dresser in one corner next to a writing desk and chair. A large, round rug featuring concentric white, red, and black circles spanned the center of the room, looking poorly maintained; it gazed up at the ceiling like a giant, unblinking eye. There was an end table on the opposite side of the room with a single lamp. Pushed against the same wall was a smallish bed with pale sheets under which a figure lay bundled, completely still except for the steady rise and fall of rhythmic breathing.

What was perhaps the strangest thing about the room, however, were the walls, which were adorned with as many mirrors as could be jammed into place. An eclectic collection of antique and modern, plain and ornate, wood-frame and steel-lined mirrors of every shape had been Permanently Stuck to every available surface. They covered the ceiling and had been tacked to the drawers of the dresser and the three doors that led to the bathroom, the kitchen, and the corridor outside.

The figure on the bed wheezed slightly every time he exhaled. His arms and legs twitched slightly every now and then as an old battle raged behind his eyelids for the thousandth time. Suddenly, he awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright and crying out. A hundred reflections from the mirrors around him did the same.

After a moment, George remembered where he was—at home in his small apartment above Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Some of the tension drained from his body as he realized he'd only been having a nightmare, but the dark circles under his eyes spoke volumes about how little sleep he got. He released the breath he'd been holding in and slowly removed himself from the bed. As he stood up, the reflections on the walls and ceiling stood up with him. Together, they all walked toward the bathroom and stepped inside where much of the same trend in décor continued.

Taking a towel from the hand rack on the wall, George tossed it over the shower rod and bent down to turn on the water as hot as he could stand it. He only spent a few minutes showering, but spent the better part of half an hour standing under the scalding water with his hands planted firmly on the wall in front of him, leaning against it as he tried to burn his exhaustion away. When he was finished, he dried himself and walked back to the bedroom to get dressed. Pulling clothes out of his dresser only to reveal more mirrors lining the inside of the drawers, George quickly dressed and walked toward the door to that would take him downstairs. His reflection from a full-length mirror on the door approached from the opposite direction, showing him just how tired he actually looked.

George reached for the doorknob on his right and felt the cool crystal meet the skin of his palm. He hesitated before turning it, simply standing in place for several minutes, staring at his hand on the doorknob without moving or blinking.

"Come on," he said out loud to himself in an encouraging way. "You can do this."

He looked up at the mirror on the door and his reflection looked back at him. He was standing off-center of the mirror so that the right side of his face was obscured where he was missing an ear.

"I don't know if I can," he told his reflection, which mimicked him as mirrors tend to do.

"You can," he said, still talking to himself. "You promised you'd carry on," he told the reflection. "You promised."

His expression changed from confident to helpless. "I c… can't do it," he said, his eyes watering slightly. "There are… too many people down there. Ron's taking good care of the shop on his own. I could… I could just leave him be."

He paused for a moment before telling himself, "But it was never Ron's dream. It was yours. Yours and…" He stopped before he said the name.

"I don't want to be down there." His voice came in a harsh whisper as his strength of will threatened to leave him.

His expression changed again. "You have to try."

"I do try!" he told his reflection. "I try every morning, I shower and get dressed and I try, but I just can't do this without…"

George's voice cracked and he stepped forward, leaning his forehead against the mirror. "Without you…" he pleaded, crumpling against it and lowering himself to the floor. He pulled his knees into his chest and pressed his left shoulder into the glass.

"You _can_ do it, George," the man told himself. "You can do it because _I_ believe you can do it."

George listened to the sound of his own voice as he tried to encourage himself to leave his apartment. His voice was so much like his brother's that it almost convinced him. He got closer and closer to convincing himself every day.

"I'm sorry, Fred," George said, looking into his reflection in a small, oval mirror on the wall at eye level. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this."

"Look away, then," he told himself, the expression in the mirror growing harsh. "The easy thing about talking to mirrors is you never have to look a reflection in the face for longer than you can stand."

Feeling the shame of his own words, George slowly turned away from the mirrors and crawled on the floor towards his bed. He pulled himself onto it and began removing his clothes, tossing them onto the rug where they disrupted the unsettling pattern. Pulling himself back under the covers, George looked up at his fractured reflection in the numerous mirrors on the ceiling. The illusion was almost gone, but he could still see traces of his brother's anger in his own face. When he could take no more, he turned on his side, tugged the covers over his head, and closed his eyes.


End file.
